Abstract: The Scythe Ninja Mini SCMNJ-1000 is a compact lower-noise heatsink ideally suited to compact PC chassis. These diminutive PCs have until now not had much in the way to choose from for reduced noise CPU cooling.

The Scythe Ninja Mini SCMNJ-1000 is
a compact lower-noise heatsink ideally suited to compact PC chassis. These
diminutive PCs have until now not had much in the way to choose
from for reduced noise CPU cooling. The Ninja Mini itself looks like a
cube, and comes with a small 80mm fan that operates relatively quietly.
Among the flurry of 120mm fan packing low noise heatsinks being released,
the Scythe Ninja Mini stands just 110mm tall. It
accomodates AMD K8 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+ and Intel
socket 478/775 processors and weighs in at a relatively light light 580
grams.Scythe sell the Ninja Mini SCMNJ-1000 CPU cooler for about $32
USD through sites like NCIX.com or CrazyPC.com.

The first
thing anyone looking at this heatsink will notice are its very widely spaced
aluminum fins. This design facet seems to work well at making the Scythe
Mini Ninja pretty quiet under power. The fan rotates
at a fixed speed of 2300 RPM, there are no thermal throttling or PWM speed controls. In typical
Scythe fashion, the Ninja Mini has been designed with an
eye towards thermal efficiency and user-friendliness.

Scythe's Ninja Mini (SMNJ-1000) heatsink is
assembled from just 16 widely spaced thin aluminum fins, intersected in twelve places
by 6mm diameter copper heatpipes. All that is connected to a thick copper base block and
an additional, smaller extruded base heatsink. The aluminum fins are punched in a
sort of a cross shape, and the 80mm fan hung on any of the four sides. The wide
fin spacing, which is near 4mm, is ideal for slow
moving air to pass easily through.

Mounting Brackets
The Scythe Ninja Mini
heatsink comes with mounting brackets that allow it to be installed on
socket 775 & socket 478 Intel and socket 939/940/AM2/AM2+ AMD
motherboards. The brackets screw onto the base of the Scythe Ninja Mini
with four screws, and after that the installation steps are tool-free.

Printed instructions are
provided. Each mounting bracket makes use of the standard AMD/Intel
method or heatsink attachment, so it will not be necessary to remove the
motherboard from the case and install support bracket, or any of that nonsense.
The two wire fan clips are suitable for 80mm fans only.

FrostyTech's Test Methodologies are outlined
in detail here if you care to know what equipment is
used, and the parameters under which the tests are conducted. Now let's move
forward and take a closer look at this heatsink, its acoustic characteristics,
and of course its performance in the thermal tests!